Dear Mick: When I watched “Seduced and Abandoned,” I thought it was the funniest mockumentary since “Best in Show,” until I finally accepted that it wasn’t a put-on. But really, the plot sounds like a Woody Allen joke — remaking “Last Tango” with Neve Campbell and Alec Baldwin? Is Baldwin that delusional?

Mark Schallert, San Francisco

Dear Mark: “Seduced and Abandoned” is not a mock documentary, but it’s a James Toback film, which means there are layers and layers of intention going on there. Basically, Toback has two movies in mind as he’s shooting “Seduced and Abandoned,” the documentary he’s making and the feature he wants to make, and he sets it up so he wins either way. He knows that the documentary, in which he goes to Cannes to pitch a movie, will be better if the pitch is odd and is rejected completely. But he’d also like to remake “Last Tango in Paris.” Toback is a very smart guy, so any angle you can think of, as a viewer, he thought of months ago and is already using it to keep you off balance. He’s the key to the movie. Baldwin is just there for the ride. If they get the money, great. If they don’t, he gets to hang out in Cannes with an endlessly entertaining guy. He’s fine either way.

Dear Mick: You recently discussed “Touch of Evil” in an “Ask Mick” column. I’m wondering: Which version of the film do you prefer, and why?

Michael Taylor, Point Reyes Station

Dear Michael: I like the version that was re-edited to Orson Welles’ specifications rather than the one the studio cut for release in 1958. The lack of opening credits over that classic first shot puts the Welles re-edit way ahead, in my estimation.

Dear Mick: If you were to vote in the Sight & Sound greatest-films poll, what would be your top 10?

Juzo Greenwood, Berkeley

Dear Juzo: For the Sight & Sound poll, critics choose 10 movies, without ranking them, and then the results are ranked in order of most mentioned. So in no order except chronological, I’d vote for the following: “Lady of the Night” (1925), “City Lights” (1931), “To Be or Not to Be” (1942), “Casablanca” (1942), “Umberto D” (1952), “Romeo and Juliet” (1968), “Cries and Whispers” (1972), “The Godfather” (1972), “Day for Night” (1973) and “The New World” (2005). What I’m valuing most here are films that show a bigness of vision, a grand and complex understanding of life, and also a directorial consciousness that’s indelible. The one exception to this is “Casablanca,” but it’s such an irresistible and appealing film that to leave it off would be dishonest, at least for me.

“Vertigo” was No. 1 the last time this poll was taken. I acknowledge Hitchcock as a master among masters, but I wouldn’t rank any of his films in the top 10 because he had the consciousness without the vision. He was certainly able to imprint his personality on celluloid with a specificity that was almost uncanny. But I suspect that half of his appeal is that his vision is as narrow and as frightened as his audience’s. The bigness of spirit that you find in Lubitsch, De Sica, Truffaut, Chaplin and Bergman isn’t there. This isn’t to say that “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest” and other Hitchcock classics aren’t great films. They are. But I don’t see them as residing among the greatest of the great.

Choosing 10 titles from the riches of 100 years of feature films is a brutal exercise. So let me give you a half dozen more that easily could have made my top 10: “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928), “L’Eclisse” (1962), “The Mother and the Whore” (1973), “Raging Bull” (1980) “25th Hour” (2002) and “The Role of Her Life” (2004). Also, I have a feeling that, with time, a Tarantino might eventually penetrate this list, either “Inglourious Basterds” or “Pulp Fiction.”

Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1985. He is the author of two books on pre-censorship Hollywood, "Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood" and "Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man." Both were books of the month on Turner Classic Movies and "Complicated Women" formed the basis of a TCM documentary in 2003, narrated by Jane Fonda. He has written introductions for a number of books, including Peter Cowie's "Joan Crawford: The Enduring Star" (2009). He was a panelist at the Berlin Film Festival and has served as a panelist for eight of the last ten years at the Venice Film Festival. His latest book, a study of women in French cinema, is "The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses."